Playpen 

2 September - 30 September 2016

Egg & Dart, Thirroul, NSW

Playpen - exhibition statement

We all have an inner landscape, a private space inhabited by our thoughts and dreams, memories and emotions. It is a space that is inextricably familiar to us, and yet, elusive as well. Sometimes we can access this space at will and sometimes little triggers take us there when we least expect it. Michelle Cawthorn is interested in the little triggers – those objects and activities that form the ‘artefacts’ of our experiences. 

Playpen continues her exploration of the way that our past pervades our everyday. In particular, this exhibition focuses on the notion of play, both real and imagined; subtly implying its ongoing function in our lives and references games the artist played when she was a child.

Employing drawing as her primary expressive form, Cawthorn’s works on paper are concerned with allowing memory to free-associate through the meditative process of hatching. As a drawn forms evolves and takes shape on the paper, associations begin to develop. These associations draw on the vast store of images and experiences that are unique to each of us and which we accumulate over a lifetime. The resultant artworks represent fragments of memory juxtaposed with representational and non-representational forms that are suggestive rather than prescribed.

Like her drawings, Cawthorn’s sculptures obliquely reference past experiences, however, their materiality demands a more sensorial response. Using fabrics and ply wood, and often taking their cue from playthings and spaces, they beg to be touched, felt, explored. This is a deliberate ploy by Cawthorn as the tactile, experiential nature of the works are intended to evoke the viewer’s own memories and experiences.

 September, 2016